Mandatory LGBTIQ+ Training

[ChocolateCrackles]

Afternoon all.

I have been notified by my employer - public healthcare - that I have to complete a mandatory online training module on LGBTIQ+ inclusion in the work setting. Apparently, I cannot conscientiously object (I asked).

This training was created by a local, government-funded advocacy group, after they did a (comprehensive, no doubt) survey on trans-identified people in healthcare settings and found their study subjects were very upset at how little they were asked their pronouns. Consequently, that the same government body have paid the same advocacy group to create this tidy bit of professional re-education, and it's tied to our practice standards/outcome measurements. Also, I think it's probably worth mentioning I am in a captured profession. And also a very out lesbian.

How do I navigate this, given that I really do not want to do this training, and don't believe it deserves to be legitimised as evidence-based practice, or mandatory for the service to complete?

I think you will find the poster's name gives you a clue as to whether you should invest time in responding!

I'm not sure how my name would make me an unreliable narrator?

Looking through the replies I would say that the consensus here is to just do the training. I have been further thinking about it, and I had sadly come to the same conclusion. I hate that this advocacy group have been paid public money to push a load of tripe onto what should be an evidence-based workplace.

If I were to take notes and critique I may be better to send them to whoever makes the funding decisions around training for our department. Unfortunately I have no idea who that might be. I doubt whether my chain of authority would have any say over these things, and I suspect it's probably been made mandatory across many departments, not just ours.

OP I don't think she was referring to you, but to a pp.

Defintely - if you thought I was referring to you, not in any way, but to the relentless joker who invades threads like this.

I hope whatever you decide it will not be too aggravating.

Are there no colleagues or support networks you can contact.

Someone upthread mentioned their CEO being very big on being disability inclusive. How much DEI training includes disability, physical and mental, compared to (or contrasted with) gender-woo?

I agree with pp the more of us that do this training, take notes and ask questions the better.

Here you are OP - the Free Speech Union have done some research into mandatory DEI training and found that employees feel they have to to hide their views for fear of losing their job.

https://freespeechunion.org/diversity-training-forces-workers-to-hide-beliefs-for-fear-of-losing-job/

I think you are doing the right thing. It’s bizarre how my short post which suggests a course of action with which others agree is considered an unserious suggestion. I meant it.

If you think the training is substandard, then do take notes and pass them on. If you think you are undertrained in supporting colleagues with other protected characteristics, by all means say so.

Alternatively, an unserious suggestion would be to take a stand against the LGBT+ training and become a martyr for the gender critical movement - and crowd fund your employment tribunal for constructive dismissal.